A Dickens Of A Week
THE week’s news focused on the Dickensian story of the Jew, the orphan and the flight to London Town.
On Monday, Davie Twist’s future was far from certain. Charities and institutions protested at Davie Twist’s removal from Africa. Protests were made.
And in London, Madonna seemed to have hatched a classic plot.
As the Sun reported, Madonna had spent £5,000 on a rocking horse for her would-be new boy. A worker at Harrods, the Knightsbridge store where the horse was sired, told the paper: “The rocking horses are hand made and top spec. They are beautiful, traditional toys.”
The paper produced a picture of what a rocking horse might look like. There was a tail, a mane and four legs placed on rockers. And a hatch in the belly through which 13-month-old David can enter, hide and thereby escape Africa for a new life in Marble Arch.
In the end, subterfuge was not necessary. And on the Tuesday, Davie was on his way to London.
But not everyone was as “ecstatic” as the boy’s father, Yohane.
“Fury as Madonna brings her baby David to London,” said the Mirror on its front page. “Madonna’s adopted baby is whisked out of Malawi on private jet.”
It was all so very cloak and dagger. The language suggested that we were not watching a woman choosing to give a motherless boy from an impoverished country a new life of splendour and rare opportunity but a kidnap.
“Madonna’s baby is bundled on plane before court fights,” the paper continued. There was another photo, a suitably grainy image of a “Madonna aide”, a kind of Nancy to Madge’s Fagin, carrying David through Johannesburg airport as they headed for London.
“Madge Grabs Baby,” said the Star’s headline. And the Mail was appalled. “Cash for babies fury as Madonna flies little David back to Britain in defiance of legal challenge,” squawked the paper’s front page.
Poor “little” David. He’d been plucked from his homeland like a silk hanky from a rich man’s pocket.
But he soon arrived. And on Wednesday, Madonna was telling the Sun that she would do anything, for Davie, dear, anything, yes she’d do anything (anything?) anything for him.
In an Open Letter from Madonna, we learnt: “It was my wish to open up our home and help one child escape an extreme life of hardship, poverty and, in many cases, death, as well as expand our family.”
And that’s a family that may yet expand. Madonna wants more. As the Mirror’s front page said: “NOW I WANT A GIRL.”
The singer was keen to adopt a three-year-old girl from the same village as young David. “I saw this girl with the saddest smile,” said Madge. “I told Guy ‘We must give this child a home too.”
And so it must be. Very soon Madonna’s place will be packed to the rafters with little loves, each with a clean silk hanky on their pillow and glass of gin and warm water in their hands.
David was in the very bosom of goodness. Consider yourself at home, young rapscallion, Davie, consider yourself one of the family.
And while we sang in the streets, Madonna bestowed gifts upon her newest.
It’s not just silk hankies picked from a pocket or two for little Davie. As the Mail reported, it’s a child-sized electric BMW, to help Davie connect with his inner estate agent, cuddly toys, designer clothes and, of course, that rocking horse.
And lest young Davie Twist feel isolated and confused in his new urban home there was a jungle mural on one wall of his huge new bedroom. A source spoke of “lions, tigers, those kind of animals”.
The thinking is surely that young Davie will look at the bucolic African landscape and remain in touch with his roots.
And on Friday we too saw a picture of Africa. Beneath a tree in deepest Malawi, crouched above the parched ground, and in the Sun, Madonna cradled Davie Twist in her arms.
Liz Rosenberg, Madge’s spokeswoman, explained. “It was love at first sight,” said she.
And a witness to the scene told People magazine: “The look of pure joy on her face was beyond words – not unlike when her own kids Lourdes and Rocco were born.”
But surely it is better. Unlike with the arrival of those other children, Davie has had little or no impact on Madonna’s figure.
And for that we should rejoice for a woman weak and erring…
Posted: 21st, October 2006 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
